Ruminations on theatre, music, and just about anything else that crosses my bipolar brain.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Cafferty on the stimulus bill: "What a joke."

I love Jack Cafferty. Here are a couple excerpts from today's piece on CNN.com:

What a joke. Your Congress has voted to spend almost $790 billion of your money on a stimulus package that not a single member of either chamber has read.

The 1,073-page document wasn't posted on the government's Web site until after 10 p.m. the day before the vote to pass it was taken. I don't care if you're Evelyn Wood, you can't read almost 1,100 pages of the lawyer talk that makes up all legislation in eight or 10 hours.

The criminal part of this boondoggle is divided into two parts. The first is the Democrats promised to post the bill a full 48 hours before the vote was taken to allow members of the public to see what they were getting for their money. Both parties voted unanimously to do this ... and they lied.

And this part is my favorite:

It's really too bad President Obama couldn't figure out a way to jettison these two [Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi] who are poster children for everything that is wrong in Washington. The Associated Press called the birth of the stimulus bill "sausage making" in the best tradition of Washington politics as usual.

There's more good stuff there. And by "good stuff," I mean appallingly predictable nonsense that will hopefully bring some of the change-worshipers down to earth just enough to remember that their job is not to blindly support the new administration as much as it is to hold them accountable for their multitudinous and often irresponsible promises.

Yes, recession is bad. The late '70s were worse. And the stimulus-spendulus-porkulus package President Obama is about to sign gives me no confidence whatsoever. Gone already are promises of bipartisanship, of fiscal responsibility, of transparency, of posting all bills on the White House website for five days before signing them. Ridiculous. At least wait a full month before flagrantly going back on your word, Mister President. And don't even get me started on eliminating corruption in your administration. How many tax cheats so far? Three? And those are just the high-profile ones, the ones we've found out about!

Sorry for the rant, y'all. But I was afraid it was going to be all Obusiness-as-usual, and I've seen nothing yet to disprove that. Grr.

7 Comments:

It really is tragic that the rookie President has allowed the veteran extremists of his party to ramrod down our collective gullets a bill so stinking rotten that it makes even right-wingers nostalgic for the Clinton era. To roll back his Welfare reform by making part of this "stimulus" an incentive for states to put more people ON welfare is truly obscene. No other word can possibly fit.

Sure, I didn't vote for Obama, but unlike the Bush haters - I don't hate Obama, or even really dislike him. But he's a month into a presidency that has already established a legacy of passing the most expensive, least effective, and yet potentially most damaging (at least from a deficit perspective) piece of legislation ever signed into law. The fact that all Republicans ran from this like the plague is telling enough; The Great Divider couldn't bring anyone from either side together to agree on this hunk of crap.

During an election night speech that reduced Jesse Jackson to a blubbering mess (and wasn't THAT a touching sight), Obama declared that if we didn't vote for him, that he would work to win our support. I can only guess he's sprained a pinky finger during one of his pick-up games of basketball, since it's not been lifted to that effort since January 20th.

I believe the 70's/early 80s were worse in terms of interest rates,unemployment and inflation (pretty sure those numbers would confirm same; I recall 11% unemployment in Virginia coming out of college in early '82), though the banking and mortgage crisis overall is far different and more severe now. But I'll check out the Frontline in more depth away from the office and see if it confirms what I know and fills in the gaps of what I've yet to learn. Thanks again Phil.